Twitter / RICriminalDef

About Us

I am a Rhode Island Criminal Defense Attorney representing clients charged with misdemeanor and felony offenses throughout the State of Rhode Island. I appear regularly in nearly every Courthouse in the State of Rhode Island. We provide particular focus to those individuals charged with DUI - drunk driving, domestic violence crimes, drug offenses, and other violent crimes.

I am available to speak with you 24/7 at 401-228-8271. If you would like to learn more about me and my experience, please review the links below:

CHARGES:COUNT 1: DOMESTIC ASSAULTCOUNT 2: DOMESTIC DISORDERLY CONDUCTPOLICE REPORT: Client's Fiance became intoxicated after an argument with the Client. While home alone he ransacked his own home, destroying pictures and smashing furniture. In the course of the destruction he had injured himself, leaving blood in the apartment. The next morning he called the Police and reported that the Client had assaulted him and destroyed his belongings. The Police proceeded to arrest the Client and charge her with Domestic Assault and Domestic Disorderly Conduct based on her Fiance's statements.RESULTS:COUNT 1: DISMISSEDCOUNT 2: DISMISSED

GLOCESTER, R.I. -- A 29-year-old motorcyclist, Scott Cohen of Harrisville, was injured shortly before 11 p.m. Thursday when he was struck by a car attempting to make a u-turn on Route 44.

The car's driver, Lisa Bonin, 51, of Bellingham, Mass., had been stopped on the breakdown lane of the highway, facing west, when, according to the police, she began to make a u-turn in the area of Chestnut Oak Road, striking Cohen, who was also heading west.

Police who witnessed the accident stopped Bonin down the road and charged her with leaving the scene of an accident after a personal injury, driving under the influence, and refusing to take a chemical test. She was released Friday on $2,000 personal recognizance, and told to appear at the Rhode Island Traffic Tribunal on Sept. 10 to answer a charge of refusing to submit a chemical test.

Bonin was treated at Fatima Hospital for non-life-threatening injuries and was later released.

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

CRANSTON, R.I. -- Getting up early and getting in line first at the Rhode Island Division of Motor Vehicles headquarters in Cranston paid off for Hayley Hutchins of Hope.

Arriving at 5:30 a.m., Hayley and her parents, Stephen and Ellen, were the first of some 200 people to get in line outside the new headquarters before it opened to the public at 8:30 a.m. on this Wednesday morning.

Hayley was there to register her first car. She was done by 8:40 a.m.

"It was really nice to be in and out," she said, "even though I spent a few hours on the sidewalk.

The Hutchins family had plenty of company on the sidewalk. At 7:30 a.m., about 40 people had gathered outside the building. Some had brought lawn chairs. By 8:15 a.m., about 200 people were standing or sitting in the cool late-summer air as the sky spit light rain on them. The line wound around to the back of the parking lot.

But the doors did open at 8:30 a.m. as promised. And by 8:43 a.m., the last person in line had made it into the building. They were handed ticket numbers as they passed through the door, so the assembly was orderly.

Since the DMV headquarters has three sets of doors for the public, each of the Hutchinses stood in front of one door to cover all the bases.

But before the doors opened, Ellen Hutchins gave her place in line to Rolando Franco of Pawtucket. Franco was the first customer to arrive at the DMV parking lot. He got there at 5 a.m., but stayed in his car until after members of the Hutchins family got in line.

He also got the first ticket, B100, but Hayley Hutchins was the first to complete her transaction, for those keeping score at home.

Franco didn't complete his business until 9:11 a.m.

By 9 a.m., 44 customers had been called to the counter to conduct their business.

By 10 a.m., customers who showed up at 8:30 or later -- those who hadn't waited outside in the rain -- were finishing their business.

Several customers said they like the new building better, that it's cleaner, the seats are more comfortable.

When they were finished, some customers were disoriented and had trouble figuring out how to get out of the new building. There are no signs to direct them. Staff members stepped up to show them the way.

The DMV is in the Aime J. Forand Building, part of the Pastore Complex at 600 New London Ave. (Route2), in Cranston. The DMV is in a dark-colored glass building across the road from the National Guard and Emergency Management Headquarters, next to the Rhode Island Traffic Tribunal.

Attorney Matthew T. Marin announces a recent victory for a client facing the charge of Refusal to Submit to a Chemical Test (Breathalyzer Refusal). If you need assistance or are facing Rhode Island Drunk Driving Charges, contact Attorney Matthew T. Marin at 401-228-8271 or mm@matthewtmarin.com.

CHARGES: Refusal To Submit to A Chemical Test (Breathalyzer Refusal)POLICE REPORT: An anonymous driver called 911 to report the Client as a suspected drunk driver. The local police department responded to the call and stopped the Client's vehicle in a gas station. The Arresting Officer observed the Client to have bloodshot and watery eyes, slurred speech, and an odor of alcohol coming from his breath. The Officer asked the Client to submit to standardized field sobriety tests which the Client then failed. The Client was placed under arrest and taken to the police station where he refused to submit to a breathalyzer test.RESULT: NOT GUILTY AFTER TRIAL

Saturday, August 21, 2010

Seventeen Rhode Islanders, including a co-owner of a popular reptile store and a city maintenance manager, face charges of possession of child pornography after state, federal and local law-enforcement agencies executed search warrants across the state early Wednesday.

“Today’s sweep ... had one objective: to protect children,” U.S. Attorney Peter Neronha said at an afternoon news conference.

The arrests came after an undercover online investigation by a state police task force aimed at fighting Internet crimes against children, in conjunction with state and federal prosecutors.

The state police targeted the users exchanging the highest volume of child pornography using a software program that searched peer-to-peer, or file-sharing, networks, Attorney General Patrick C. Lynch said. Investigators then secured downloads, often of images involving young children and even infants, from the suspects by persuading them over the Internet to share a pornographic file, according to the state police.

The police got search warrants for the residences based on the downloads and retrieved thousands of photographs and videos featuring child pornography. More than 70 authorities executed the warrants Wednesday morning.

“These images are so vile and disgusting,” Lynch said at a news conference late Wednesday.

It appears at this point that no Rhode Island children were featured in the images, state police Col. Brendan P. Doherty said. But investigators will continue looking at pursuing possible child-pornography manufacturing and trafficking charges, said Bruce Foucart, special agent in charge of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Boston office.

Neronha noted that the detectives had to view very disturbing images in the course of the investigation. “It takes a toll on police and prosecutors to work this,” he said.

Those facing a charge of possession of child pornography include Shawn Fay, 39, of 1023 Danielson Pike, North Scituate, a co-owner of Regal Reptiles in Providence and Little League coach, and Miguel Escobedo, 38, a maintenance manager for the City of Providence, state police Capt. David Neill said.

Two juveniles were also arrested.

Kyle Martin, 22, of 31 Willis Drive, Cumberland, was charged with possession of steroids and does not face a child-pornography charge.

With the exception of Girard Proux, 43, of 522 York Ave., Pawtucket, all of the adults arrested were released on $5,000 personal recognizance after arraignment or appearances before a bail commissioner. Proux was released on $5,000 bail with surety.

The state police Internet Crimes Against Children task force is funded by a U.S. Department of Justice grant. It’s made up of state police detectives as well as detectives from the Providence, West Warwick and Coventry police departments and an ICE agent. Other agencies to participate in Wednesday’s raids were ICE, the U.S. Marshals Service, the Naval Criminal Investigative Services, and probation and parole officials. Child protective services workers from the state Department of Children, Youth and Families and the Children’s Advocacy Center also assisted.

SCITUATE -- The state police used aerial surveillance and employed its SWAT team on Thursday to corral a 65-year-old man who they believed was a major drug dealer. Instead, they learned after the fact that the suspect was licensed through the Rhode Island Health Department to grow marijuana to cope with his medical problems.

Still, Louis Magiera, of 89 Nipmuc Trail, Scituate, was charged with two felony marijuana counts for growing eight more marijuana plants than he is allowed to grow in the state program. Under the rules of the program, a patient is allowed to grow up to 12 marijuana plants for his own use. The state police said they discovered 20 plants on his sprawling property.

State Police Capt. David Neill said the show of force could have been avoided had state law allowed the police to get information from the Health Department on whether Magiera was a patient or caregiver in the medical marijuana program.

"If we knew he was a patient and had a right to grow, we would have handled it differently," he said.

CHARGES:COUNT 1: DOMESTIC VANDALISMCOUNT 2: DOMESTIC DISORDERLY CONDUCTPOLICE REPORT: Client and her husband, married over 30 years, had an argument regarding the purchase of an automobile for their adult son. The Client became extremely upset and smashed her husband's cell phone and sunglasses. The Police were summonsed. Upon their arrival, they witnessed the broken items and arrested the Client on Domestic Vandalism and Domestic Disorderly Conduct charges.RESULTS:COUNT 1: DISMISSEDCOUNT 2: DISMISSED

Friday, August 6, 2010

Attorney Matthew T. Marin announces a recent victory for a client facing the charges of First Offense DUI with Breath Test Results Over 0.15 BAC (two times the legal limit). If you need assistance or are facing Rhode Island Drunk Driving Charges, contact Attorney Matthew T. Marin at 401-228-8271 or mm@matthewtmarin.com.

CHARGES:(1) Driving Under the Influence of Alcohol with Breath Test Results Over 0.15 BAC(2) Disorderly Conduct(3) Reckless DrivingPOLICE REPORT: Client was observed swerving in and out of parked cars at a high rate of speed in the Misquamicut State Beach parking lot by a Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management Officer. The DEM Officer pulled the Client over. While speaking with the Client, the Officer observed slurred speech, bloodshot watery eyes, and a strong odor of alcohol emanating from his breath. The DEM Officer then administered the Horizontal Gaze Nystagmus field sobriety test, which the Client failed. The Client then became verbally abusive an belligerent towards the Officer, screaming profanities and attempting to fight the Officer. The Officer then administered the final two field sobriety tests, which the Client failed. The Client then submitted to the breathalyzer which determined that his blood alcohol level was 0.155 and 0.165, twice the legal limit of 0.08. The Client was charged with Driving Under the Influence with Breathalyzer Results Over 0.15, Reckless Driving, and Disorderly Conduct.RESULTS:(1) DUI / Drunk Driving with BAC Results Over 0.15 - DISMISSED(2) Disorderly Conduct - DISMISSED(3) Reckless Driving - One Year Probation (no loss of license)

Tuesday, August 3, 2010

Attorney Matthew T. Marin announces a recent victory for a client facing the charge of possession of marijuana (first offense) brought by a local police department. If you need assistance or are facing a Rhode Island Drug Charge or other criminal charges, contact Attorney Matthew T. Marin at 401-228-8271 or mm@matthewtmarin.com.CHARGE:POSSESSION OF MARIJUANA (FIRST OFFENSE)POLICE REPORT: Client was stopped by the police because his license plate was not illuminated. As the police spoke with the Client, the observed the odor of freshly burnt marijuana emanating from the vehicle. The police removed the Client from the vehicle and began searching the vehicle. A search of the interior of the vehicle resulted in the police locating a bag containing suspected marijuana. The suspected marijuana field tested positive and the Client was charged with simple possession of marijuana (first offense).RESULT: DISMISSED

CHARGES:COUNT 1: DOMESTIC VANDALISMCOUNT 2: DOMESTIC DISORDERLY CONDUCTPOLICE REPORT: Client and her boyfriend were both intoxicated at their home. A verbal argument broke out. During the argument, the alleged victim poured a glass of juice on the Client. This caused the Client to allegedly throw the victim's clothing out the window into the street. The argument and ensuing events were witnessed by neighbors who gave complete written statements to the responding police officers. Based on the witness statements, the police arrested the Client for domestic vandalism and domestic disorderly conduct.RESULTS:COUNT 1: DISMISSEDCOUNT 2: DISMISSED

Sunday, August 1, 2010

PAWTUCKET –– State Trooper William Reilly Jr. hears the next 18-wheeler approaching before he ever sees it.

Big rigs throw out a distinct sound ahead of them. Reilly turns in time to watch a red tanker truck shoot past his perch and rumble onto the Route 95 bridge.

“Here we go.” The cruiser’s tires spit gravel, then propel Reilly into northbound traffic and across the Seekonk River below.

The third chase of the morning is on.

Almost 21,000 trucks have been stopped for crossing this bridge since November 2007, when the state imposed weight and, later, axle restrictions on the deteriorating span. Reilly and his fellow troopers have issued $6.9 million in violations, most coming in the form of $3,000 penalties to the trucking companies and $85 tickets to the drivers for defying detour signs set up miles away.

Still the trucks cross the bridge. Still the troopers pull them over. Day and night. Work days and weekends.

It’s enough to make any commuter witnessing the perpetual roadside scene wonder: don’t these truckers use CB radios anymore?

Smokey’s on the bridge. Follow the detour signs and get off before you get pinched.

Reilly has wondered the same thing many times. Turns out most of the truckers he’s stopped use cell phones and navigational devices that don’t show the detours. Other truckers know better but shoot the bridge anyway, perhaps hoping the troopers are busy with other truckers.

How many trucks has Reilly stopped since he began working this post in November 2007?

“The calculator doesn’t go up that high,” he joked minutes before taking up the latest chase. “When we first started, you couldn’t keep up with them all. You would be pulling out to get one and another would go by. They didn’t know what was going on at first.”

Now, after almost three years, Reilly can’t believe any trucker working New England roads doesn’t know about the Route 95 bridge detour in Pawtucket.

Yet the troopers remain busy, constantly replenishing their well of stories.

Reilly stopped a truck once with a driver and co-driver inside. He handed the $85 ticket to the driver for disobeying the detour signs. The unhappy driver wouldn’t accept it.

“It’s his fault,” he shouted, pointing to his copilot. “He’s supposed to be watching the signs, not me.”

Many truckers apparently have a preconceived image of the bridge having a metal arch and report never knowing they had crossed it.

On another day, a trooper stopped a truck crossing the bridge on the northbound side and gave him the regular two tickets: one $85 ticket for disobeying the detour signs and the $3,000 fine for the trucking company for an overweight or axle violation (any truck with more than two axles).

The following day Reilly was watching the bridge from the southbound side when the same truck and driver came back across.

“Buddy, what were you thinking?” asked Reilly. “Didn’t you learn your lesson yesterday?”

The trucker replied: “Yeah, I know you stopped me yesterday. That’s why I thought I could come back this way today, ’cause I got the ticket already.”

Reilly wrote him out another $85 ticket.

Trooper Ken Jones, a former Marine who stands about 6-foot-5, once stopped an equally large man from the South who carried on and on about how unfair it was that he had received an $85 ticket. Then Jones handed him a $3,000 ticket to present to his boss.

The big trucker appeared to implode right there by the side of the road like some eye-bulging cartoon character. Trooper Jones reported watching the truck cab swaying back and forth after the driver climbed back inside. Apparently he was tearing the interior apart.

Truckers often tell troopers they never saw the multiple signs for the detours or that they were confused by their message: 2 axle limit/18 ton max. Drivers with empty trucks know they are under the 18-ton maximum weight limit and sometimes think they can legally cross. Not so. The two-axle limit has been in play since 2008.

Reilly says he’s had some truckers say they thought the signs meant 18 tons per axle, which if they did the math would mean their five-axle vehicles would weigh at least 180,000 pounds, a weight illegal on any road.

State transportation officials concede the signs can be misconstrued but say it’s difficult to convey a clear message in a short space and which drivers have only a few seconds to comprehend.

And so red lights keep flashing in truckers’ rear-view mirrors.

With fast acceleration, Trooper Reilly catches up to the red truck in seconds. The truck pulls into the breakdown lane near Exit 29. Reilly approaches from the passenger side, hand resting on his pistol holster. He climbs onto the truck and asks the driver to step out.

“What’d I do?” asks Daniel Smithers, 59, of Pennsylvania

“Didn’t you see the detour signs?” Reilly replies, and calmly recites what he has said hundreds of times before: the signs began back in East Greenwich. You were supposed to take Exit 27 before the bridge. …”

“This is brand new to me,” says Smithers. “I haven’t been driving that long.”

Smithers eventually says he did see the signs; something about an 18-ton limit. But he’s riding empty, heading up to Mansfield, Mass., to pick up a load of liquid chocolate to bring back down to Pennsylvania. He’s under the weight restriction.

Reilly reminds him of the axle restriction, too. Smithers looks away and nods.

Back in the cruiser, Reilly is writing out an $85 ticket to Smithers for disobeying the detour signs when another 18-wheeler whines past at full speed and in the middle lane. Had it taken the detour, it would not have had time yet to get going so fast. A lucky fish.

Does it bother Reilly that one got away?

“Yep,” is all he says.

Reilly hands Smithers the $85 ticket. The trooper has spared the truck company the $3,000 violation. He knows the truck is below the 18-ton limit, therefore it didn’t violate that statute, nor technically hurt the bridge, which is scheduled to be replaced by a new $90-million span by June 2013. (Construction is expected to start by the end of this year.)

“I normally don’t come up here at all,” says Smithers, who took up trucking after losing a factory job. “I got my pilot’s license. I should have flown. Then the only thing you have to worry about is terrorists.”

Between January and June of 2008, troopers stopped on average 1,023 trucks a month on the bridge, according to state police statistics. Through the first six months of this year, troopers stopped on average 417 trucks a month.

Most trucks, said Reilly, are stopped heading south, where the detour route through Central Falls and Pawtucket is more confusing than the northbound detour, which is short and parallels the bridge.

Reilly ends his 12-hour shift with nine stopped trucks. His partner on the southbound side, Trooper Brendan Devine, stopped one or two more. Another typical day of putting smiles on people’s faces.

A day earlier, Pierre LaCroix, 42, of Quebec, the owner of a small trucking company, drove his personal pickup, carrying nothing but his outrage, for almost nine hours and 400 miles south to the Traffic Tribunal court house in Cranston.

In a large yellow envelope, he had brought with him the ticket his company’s driver had received one day in June and the $3,000 fine levied against his company. He also had a copy of the hand-written driving directions he had received from the Arnold Lumber Co., in South Kingstown, explaining the route LaCroix’s trucker should follow to deliver the order of wood.

The directions clearly stated to take Route 95 south through Pawtucket, turning south onto Route 4 in Warwick. It said nothing about a bridge detour.

Speaking through a French interpreter, LaCroix negotiated with the state police prosecutor to have his fine cut in half to $1,500, a settlement most traffic court judges are willing to accept if the truck company pleads guilty and spares the state the time and cost of a trial.

Still LaCroix was not pleased.

“Three thousand dollars is exaggerated,” he said afterward. “It’s not legal, and you can put that on the front page.”

Was there any lesson learned? “Yes. Not to come to Rhode Island.”

BY THE NUMBERSBreaking the law on the Pawtucket Bridge

In 2007, the state imposed weight limits. In 2008, trucks with more than two axles were also banned from crossing the Route 95 bridge. The state police provided the following numbers.

Peprah, of Lincoln, and Gizaw, of South Kingstown, were sophomores in 2008. The woman was a freshman but is no longer a URI student.

The woman had testified that Peprah forced her to have sexual intercourse even though she said no and told him to stop. She said she had drunk eight or nine shots of vodka that night at a dorm suite party and was incapable of moving to the bedroom.

The woman said Gizaw also forced oral sex on her despite telling him no. Another student at the time, Marina Melillo, then briefly sexually assaulted her, she alleged. Melillo has been indicted, and the case is pending.

Peprah said he asked several times if the woman wanted to have sex and that she indicated she did. Outside the dorm, he testified, she exhaled marijuana smoke and told him to kiss her to breathe it in. He said the two also kissed in an elevator.

Gizaw described what he and the woman did as consensual.

Jake Toole, a friend of the woman’s, testified that she was shaking and upset when she told him the day after the party that she had been raped. The two were going to do laundry and watch a Harry Potter movie the night of the party, but when she didn’t return from the party, he grew worried. They exchanged text messages around 1 a.m. on Sept. 14.

Fowler suggested in his closing argument that the woman had been embarrassed about the sexual acts with the two men and the woman, a “morning-after syndrome.”

Fowler said “it defies reason” that the woman moved around at the party, walked in and out of the dorm, but “all of a sudden, at the moment of sexual intercourse” was unable to move. She did not yell for help, dial 911, or attempt to leave the dorm during the night, he said.

Caron recounted Marisa Cherry’s testimony that the alleged victim and Peprah were in bed and that the woman said, “I feel so good.”

“Hardly the words of an immobilized victim [that the woman] said she was when she testified at trial,” Caron told the jury.

The defense lawyers noted a nurse-practitioner’s testimony that there was no bruising or semen found when she reported the alleged rape.

Prosecutor Stephen A. Regine suggested that Peprah and Gizaw picked out the woman as a “mark” for sex.

Regine asked the jury why they heard the phrase “are you OK?” again and again, including from defense witnesses. “Because she wasn’t,” he said. “She really, really wasn’t.”

Michael J. Healey, spokesman for the attorney general’s office, stated the burden of proof was high, “and the jury found pretty quickly that we didn’t meet it. We did our best to pursue justice for the alleged victim.”

Attorney Matthew T. Marin announces a recent victory for a client facing a charge of Domestic Assault and Battery. If you need assistance or are facing a Rhode Island Domestic Assault and Battery Charges, contact Attorney Matthew T. Marin at 401-228-8271 or mm@matthewtmarin.com.

CHARGES:COUNT 1: DOMESTIC ASSAULT AND BATTERYPOLICE REPORT: Client and her fiance were on vacation at a local hotel. During the night the couple began arguing, allegedly screaming at each other. Another guest in a neighboring room called the police after he heard a male scream "you broke my nose, you bitch." When the police arrived, they entered the room and witnessed blood splattered all over the walls and floor. Client's Fiance was seen to have a bloody nose and scratches on his forehead. After interviewing all the parties, the police charged the Client with one count of domestic simple assault and battery against her Fiance.RESULTS:COUNT 1: DISMISSED the day of trial